The Other Sports

I have a degree and a minor degree from Boise State, and they’re both in the area of entertainment. That’s right. Entertainment.

I labored for years as a student performing artist, juggling studies with the necessity of practicing, practicing, practicing my arts (theatre and music). Tell me that there’s a difference between what I did and what Boise State football players do. Well, there is a difference, and that is that we theatre students didn’t have the resources available to us to assist us through the academic aspects of our university education while putting in a grueling rehearsal and performance schedule, as do the athletes. That’s about it.

Please, don’t think for a moment that any of our student athletes aren’t involved in the same “business” in which I participated. Entertainment. That’s what it is, folks. To decry the public’s or the students’ attendance at athletic events (entertainment) as inadequate without addressing all the other “entertainment” opportunities in our community is, I believe, a canard.

Only 4,000 showing up for a basketball game? Do you know what an audience of 4,000 would have meant to me and my fellows when we presented Shakespeare at Boise State? Is the Bard any less valuable than roundball? But we never cried about it. We took our standing "O"s from the relatively few who ventured out (although in sold-out houses), and considered our run a success.

I’m not here to argue that athletics, or theatre, or music, or dance do not have merit beyond performance and “entertainment.” They are exhausting disciplines for those driven to pursue them. Of course there are values intrinsic to them all, values and lessons that stick with you throughout your life. We performers/athletes hope that our audiences might take something away from our efforts to add to their life experiences and, hopefully, their wisdom. But, let’s be realistic. Other than the participants, most “fans” are in it for the entertainment value. We love our boys and girls and want them to succeed, and we watch them occasionally through their post-university years, but the spectacle and the competition is really why we fans turn out on a Saturday afternoon. That’s entertainment. It’s part of what makes being a human enjoyable. Nothing wrong with being entertained.

Rather than complain about who should or should not support this or that program, rather than carp about any individual or collective use of precious personal time for activities outside work and home, it is my firm belief that the merits of any form of entertainment should be the only determining factor in our response. If you build a good show, you will see the public react positively. I’ve been doing this as an amateur and semi-professional for well over five decades now, and it has been proven to me over and over again. If you don’t have a good show, well, “you pack up your makeup and go.” That, too, is an aspect of being an entertainer.

Please, if anyone disagrees with my premise (and it’s certainly not gospel), don’t expect a redux of our weekend agony. I’ll do my best to not respond.

I think that’s something Ihave was consistently missing from what I was trying to say, and I’ll take the blame for bad comm on that one. I don’t just care about the football team. I like hearing about Bronco success in any sport because they all face the same set of challenges. This is a new school that has obliterated the normal pacing for development, it’s why I use the phrase New U Rising (which is an actual slogan created by Boise St.) in my videos sometimes.

So I’m not saying he didn’t have a valid complaint. The entire problem was that he interrupted camaraderie during a once in a lifetime event to point fingers at a group of people that have nothing to do with his complaint. To me, that’s a little like if I were to jump in his grill and blame him for the fallen state of education in America. He may agree with my overall assessment but he has no direct ties to that and it is neither his responsibility nor prerogative to be deeply involved with such things. I also gave him the example that I think he should help defend the country he was born in but I don’t expect him to take a tour in Afghanistan to do it, there are other ways that he may have an actual interest in, like pursuing higher education.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that even though the topic centered around the basketball team’s lack of support (which I empathize with), the argument and reason for offense was over basic treatment of people, stereotyping, selfishness, misdirected blame, and pointing of fingers at a group that, at the end of the day, has very little impact on the basketball program. It was absolutely wrong and I held his feet to the fire for it until he recognized that.

this is an event that has kind of escaped my attention as I’ve been pretty busy lately. I might be able to make it.

that I was and still am very torqued over that whole incident. I’m not at all. To me, this is a good forum to expand understanding. I felt a lot of people, including Ihave, came away from that argument feeling no one cared about the other sports, it was just football, football all the time as he put it.

That’s simply not true and I would like that to be understood. But, just like the football team had to do, you have to build up a fanbase. It’s not anyone’s responsibility or job to attend a game they are not into. That is an unfair demand.

Additionally, while quite annoyed at the fact Ihave could not grasp basic concepts, I was never really angry and am not peturbed now. Rather, I see a young man who has conviction, heart, and staying power but who simply had his guns pointed in the wrong direction.

I’ve trained up a lot of young people over the years and sometimes you have to smack them in the back of the head and get in their face a little to pry them from a bad idea. They don’t like it at the time but it plants a seed they can think about for a while. I went tit for tat with Ihave, and part of that is because I like to argue. Another part that I don’t think people realize, is that I considered him worth the time and effort. He’s a young guy, with a strong feeling on an area he has some good points. On top of that he’s a full fledged, card carrying member of Bronco Nation. I consider that worth fighting for or, in this case at least, with.

I don’t know if it shows up in my writing or not, but I’m kind of passionate about this. It has very little to do with basketball, or football, or fan support, or Boise St even. It has much more to do with interpersonal communication, working with people, learning from each other, fleshing out the details of a topic through argument so that everyone understands each other a little better. I hope he comes back but I absolutely feel I pursued that dialogue exactly the way I should have as well.

Sorry for the lengthy response Chief. To summarize, I ain’t mad hehe.

Keep in mind the National sentiment before, and after that game.

“Tennessee Vs. Kansas is Biggest Upset of Season in Men’s College Basketball”

That pretty much spells out that Kansas was suppose to “kick their butts”

I was merely pointing out where your obvious frustrations were possibly coming from, as in the extraordinary attentence record of the Vols. This is just my way of trying to put myself in your shoes, to better understand you, and where your behavior was coming from last weekend. Am I completely wrong?